Archives for the month of: June, 2018
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Tennessee Testing SNAFU: There Was No Cyberattack

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2018 //
25

An investigation of the meltdown in the Tennessee computerized testing this past spring determined that there was no cyberattack, as the state education department originally claimed. Instead, the vendor made errors.

Questar’s unauthorized change of an online testing tool — not a possible cyber attack, as earlier reported by the company — was responsible for shutting down Tennessee’s computerized exams on their second day this spring, the state’s chief investigator reported Wednesday.

An independent probe determined that “there was no cyber attack,” nor was any student data compromised, when thousands of students could not log onto the online exam known as TNReady on April 17.

Instead, investigators said, Questar was mostly responsible for this year’s testing miscues. The main culprit was a combination of “bugs in the software” and the slowness of a computerized tool designed to let students turn text into speech if they need audible instructions.

Comptroller Justin P. Wilson reviewed early findings of his office’s internal review and the external investigation by a company hired by the Education Department during a legislative hearing in Nashville.

Education Commissioner Candice McQueen also told lawmakers that Tennessee is docking Questar about $2.5 million this year out of its $30 million contract because of the online problems that plagued many students and schools during the three-week testing window.

Payments being withheld are punitive, as well as to cover the state’s costs to address the problems, she said, adding that other discounts could follow.

Last week, McQueen announced that the state plans to launch a new search this fall for one or more testing companies to take over TNReady beginning in the 2019-20 school year. She said a track record of successful online testing is a must.

Will states ever figure out that online testing is less reliable than paper-and-pencil testing, and that teacher-made tests are more valuable than any standardized tests?

Categories Accountability, Technology, Computers, Tennessee, Testing

What We Learned from the NPE-Schott Foundation Report on Privatization of Public Funds

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2018 //
15

The Network for Public Education and the Schott Foundation for Public Education released a report grading the states on their support for public education and documenting the extent to which states are allowing the privatization of public funds.

The report can be found here.It will be regularly updated to reflect changing events.

The livestream of the press briefing, featuring John Jackson, president of the Schott Foundation, Carol Burris of the Network for Public Education, and me is on the Schott Foundation Facebook page.

Here is my perspective on what we learned.

Currently, 9% of American students attend private and religious schools; 6% attend charter schools; and 85% attend public schools.

The public does not realize that every dollar spent for a charter or a voucher is a dollar subtracted from public schools. No state has added extra dollars for charters or vouchers. They simply take money away from public schools, which most students attend

Charters and vouchers are a substitute for fully funding our public schools.

As we saw in the dramatic wave of teacher strikes this past spring, our public schools, which educate 85% of all students, are being systematically underfunded.

Privatization is diverting money from public schools.

Take Indiana, for example. There are more than 1 million students in Indiana. Of that number, 35,000 use vouchers. This is 3.5% of the students in the state. Vouchers cost the state $153 million this past year, which causes budget cuts in every district. The Fort Wayne Community Schools alone lost $20 million. Nearly 60% of the voucher students never attended a public school. The voucher program is an explicit way for the state to fund religious schools. In addition, Indiana has 4% of its students in charter schools, another loss to district budgets. Please note that despite the rhetoric of the politicians, the overwhelming majority of students are choosing public schools, not using vouchers or enrolling in charters. This is the case even though more than half the students in the state are eligible for a voucher.

Consider Florida. Its state constitution explicitly bans the spending of public dollars in religious schools. In 2012, Jeb Bush pressed for a constitutional amendment that would remove that explicit ban (he called his amendment, Proposition 8, the “Religious Liberty Amendment”). Despite the appealing name, the voters decided by a margin of 55-45% NOT to repeal the ban on funding religious schools with public dollars. Nonetheless, Florida now has four different voucher programs. Their total cost, according to calculations done by Carol Burris, the executive director of NPE, is nearly $1 billion annually. Florida has 2.7 million school-age children. About 250,000 (10%) are in privately managed charter schools; another 140,000 (5%) use vouchers. Despite the widespread availability of charters and vouchers, despite the Legislature’s love affair with school choice, the overwhelming majority of students in Florida enroll in public schools.

While writing this privatization report, Burris calculated that about $2.4 billion is diverted from public schools to voucher schools, which are not accountable and are often evangelical schools that do not teach modern science or history and are not subject to civil rights protections.

Add to that the likely cost of charters. There are 3 million students currently enrolled in charters, out of a total student enrollment in the U.S. of 50 million. States vary in the amount they allot to charters. If the average state allotment is $5,000–and it could be higher–then that is another $15 billion subtracted from public schools to pay for privately managed charters.

That’s $17 Billion withdrawn from the public schools that enroll 85% of students.

In other words, the great majority of students are losing funding for their public school to support the choices of a very small minority.

Even in states where public officials are under the thumb of the choice lobbyists, there is no stampede for vouchers or charters. A small minority in every state are choosing to attend a charter or voucher, even in a state like Florida.

The vast majority are enrolled in public schools, and their public schools are cutting budgets, laying off teachers, increasing class sizes, and losing programs like the arts, so that a tiny minority can use public dollars to attend charter schools or voucher schools, where teachers are less qualified and less experienced.

This diversion of public dollars is hurting public schools whose doors are open to all.

The real cost of privatization is paid by the 47 million children who choose public schools.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Funding, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Jan Resseger, Nancy Bailey: Why the Department of Education Should not Be Merged with the Department of Labor

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2018 //
12

Like Jan Resseger, I’m old enough to remember when the U.S. Office of Education was part of the massive Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

Words matter. So do signals. We saw that when Melania Trump traveled to the Texas Border to demonstrate “compassion,” wearing a jacket that had a logo: “I really don’t care, do U?”

Jan writes here about why it is a bad message to merge Education and Labor into one cabinet department.

“Although the Trump administration cannot impose a restructure of the government without approval by Congress, one must pay attention, nonetheless, to the proposal announced yesterday and even to the meaning of the language in which the proposed restructure is framed—education defined as workforce preparation, for example, and the return of the word “welfare,’ now a pejorative in conservative political circles, to make it easier for politicians to slash funding by the federal government.

“What is being proposed lacks compassion for children. The new plan is designed by officials impervious to what is well known about healthy child development. The proposed restructure reflects the kind of heartlessness we’ve been watching as Trump administration officials callously separate babies and toddlers from their parents at the border, lock tiny, bewildered children in closed-Walmart orphanages, or send them on airplanes to social agencies or foster parents in far-off cities.”

Nancy Bailey writes on the same issue:

She asks:

Moms and Dads, when you looked into your newborn’s eyes for the first time, did you think, I wonder what job our government will steer our baby into?

A merger of the Department of Education (DOE) with the Department of Labor (DOL) is about just that.

Here’s a quote from this administration’s manual called “Delivering Government Solutions in the 21st Century: Reform Plan and Reorganization” (p.23-28).

The workforce development program consolidation would centralize and better coordinate Federal efforts to train the American workforce, reduce administrative costs, and make it easier for States and localities to run programs to meet the comprehensive needs of their workforce. (p.23)

Where is the word child or teen in that quote?

Chances are when you looked into your baby’s eyes, you weren’t thinking of the government at all.

No, when you marveled at the miracle of your child, your hopes were, and still are, for them, not a government that caters to corporations.

Categories Education Reform, Trump, U.S. Department of Education

Boston Superintendent Tommy Chang Is Resigning

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2018 //
18

Tommy Chang is resigning as superintendent of the Boston public schools, only three years into his five year contract. The reasons are unclear, but the story suggests it may be because of failure to relate to parents or the mayor was dissatisfied or sharing of information with ICE, which led to a student being deported.

If you know more, chime in.

Chang was formerly a top deputy to John Deasy in L.A.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Boston

Good News! Oklahoma Court Rejects Referendum on Tax Hike to Fund Teacher Raises

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2018 //
0

After the legislature agreed to raise teachers’ pay, an anti-tax group tried to put a measure on the state ballot opposed to the tax hike to fund the raises.

Today the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down the effort to conduct a state referendum on the tax hikes.

OKLAHOMA CITY — A referendum petition seeking to repeal tax hikes used to fund teacher raises is invalid, the Oklahoma Supreme Court said in a ruling issued Friday.

Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite! sought to ask voters to repeal House Bill 1010xx, which hiked taxes on cigarettes, little cigars, fuel and gross production.

State Question 799 drew two legal challenges before the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

“Upon review, we hold that the petition is legally insufficient and invalid,” the court opinion said.

It ordered SQ 799 stricken from the ballot.

The court ruled that failure to include the little cigar tax in the gist or summary of the petition was problematic.

“What is troublesome is the failure to make any mention (of) one of the five revenue sources at all,” the opinion said.

Without even a brief mention in the gist of all the taxes poised to be rejected, voters are fundamentally unable to cast and informed vote and will not be aware of the practical effect of the petition, the opinion said.

Categories Funding, Oklahoma, Teacher Pay

School Choice is Not Good for American Education

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2018 //
41

I wrote this article, which was posted just online by the Washington Post.

Charters are not “progressive.” They pave the way for vouchers. They divert funding from public schools, which enroll 85% of American students. They are more segregated than public schools. Ninety percent are non-union. The far-right Walton Foundation is spending $200 million a year on charters and Betsy DeVos is currently spending $400 million, which may soon increase to $500 million. The vaunted “high performance” charters have either higher attrition or cherry pick their students.

Our nation is evolving a new dual school system, with one system choosing its students and the other required to find a place for all who apply.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Reform, Segregation, Supporting public schools, Unions, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers

GOP Wants to Balance Budget by Cutting Medicare, Medicaid

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2018 //
20

How will the Republican Party pay for the huge tax cuts they enacted last winter for corporations and the wealthiest?
“House Republicans released a proposal Tuesday that would balance the budget in nine years — but only by making large cuts to entitlement programs, including Medicare, that President Trump vowed not to touch.

“The House Budget Committee is aiming to pass the blueprint this week, but that may be as far as it goes this midterm election year. It is not clear that GOP leaders will put the document on the House floor for a vote, and even if it were to pass the House, the budget would have little impact on actual spending levels.

“Nonetheless the budget serves as an expression of Republicans’ priorities at a time of rapidly rising deficits and debt. Although the nation’s growing indebtedness has been exacerbated by the GOP’s own policy decisions — including the new tax law, which most analyses say will add at least $1 trillion to the debt — Republicans on the Budget Committee said they felt a responsibility to put the nation on a sounder fiscal trajectory.”

Categories Education Reform

Andre Agassi, Tennis Legend, Now Profits from Privatizing Public Education

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2018 //
32

Andre Agassi became a tennis legend as a young man. He started tennis early, having dropped out of school at the end of eighth grade to make his mark on clay courts.

Then he opened his own charter school in Las Vegas, and promised that every student would be prepared for a selective college (Agassi never completed high school). Agassi plowed $18 million into the school to assure that it had the best of everything. He told the New York Times in 2004 that he wanted his school to be a model for the nation.

Unfortunately the Agassi school was a disaster. Teachers and principals cycled in and out through a revolving door. It had six principals in its first decade. The cheerleading coach was accused of running a prostitution ring on the side. Security guards complained that the kids were out of control. The scores were about the same as the district’s, despite what teachers called “a chaotic learning environment.” (Source: Amy Kingsley, “Learning Curve,” Las Vegas Citylife, March 14, 2012).

It ended up on the state’s list of low-performing schools. At the very bottom.

What does a state do with a low-performing charter school? Turn it into a public school? Absolutely not! It was handed over to the Democracy Prep Charter chain of New York.

But the word “failure” is not in Andre Agassi’s vocabulary. Last year, he went to the big annual entrepreneur’s conference at Arizona State University to boast about the millions he was now making building new charters. And he pretends that his school in Las Vegas was a phenomenal success.

Andre Agassi, who was once the number one tennis player in the world, has helped build 70 charter schools in the past four years, educating 33,000 students. And that’s just the beginning, he told hundreds of attendees at the 2017 ASU/GSV Summit here Wednesday.

“We have $1 billion more to spend,” he said.

Agassi described his passion for education, his drive to scale up successful charter schools across the nation, and the business model he’s using to do so in an interview with sportscaster Ted Robinson.

“It took me 14 years to build one school in Clark County [Nev.] for 1,300 students,” said Agassi. That school, the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, is a K-12 public charter school that educates students in a low-income neighborhood of West Las Vegas. The academy was constructed with $40 million raised by the Andre Agassi Foundation for Education

At least he has the good sense not to replicate his own failed charter school. Why bother, when he can make $1 Million for every charter school he builds and opens.

Charter schools that have been funded through the Turner-Agassi fund have included KIPP, Rocketship, Academica, Franklin Academy and Lighthouse Academies.

Agassi knows nothing about education but he knows how to turn a profit. In 2023, he bought a building in the Bronx, New York, for $4.3 Million. Five years later, in a related-party transaction, his charter building sold the site to his charter schools for $24 Million. Somebody pocketed $20 Million. Isn’t the charter industry amazing?

What a shame to see a tennis icon reduced to charter shill, profiting by hurting public schools.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Failure, Nevada, Privatization

Leonie Haimson: Shedding Light on the Debate about NYC’s Selective High Schools

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2018 //
16

Leonie Haimson lays out the case for reforming the admission practices of New York City’s elite admission-by-exam high schools. Changes are long overdue, she says.

The problem is that so few black and Hispanic students gain admission to the city’s eight specialized high schools.

As a Leonie points out, “Only 10 percent of students admitted to these selective high schools are black and Hispanic, while these students make up 67 percent of the overall public school population. This year, only 10 black students were offered admission to the city’s most selective of these high schools, Stuyvesant, out of 902 students admitted.”

However, only three high schools are shielded by state law from changes initiated by the city’s Board of Education. The Mayor could direct his board to make changes at five of the selective schools now.

New York city’s selective schools are the only ones in the nation that base admission solely on a single test.

The problems are not limited to three or eight high schools.

“The competitive nature of this process worsened under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein. The number of high schools that admitted students through academic screening increased from 29 in 1997 to 112 in 2017, while the proportion of “ed-opt” high schools, designed to accept students at all different levels of achievement, dropped sharply. Even so-called unscreened programs actually do screen students, in covert ways. Moreover, the Gates-funded small schools that proliferated after 2002 initially barred students with disabilities or English language learners from their schools, prompting a civil rights complaint in 2006.“

A major fix would require reducing class sizes in the elementary and middle schools to improve the education of all children.

Categories Class size, Competition, New York City, Testing

Jan Resseger on Michelle Rhee’s Collapsing Legacy

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2018 //
8

It is one of the curiosities of our time that reformers point to D.C. as one of their triumphs, based on the gain of a few points in test scores on NAEP and rising graduation rates.

D.C. remains one of the lowest performing districts in the nation. And on those same NAEP tests that gladden the hearts of reformers, the D.C. schools have the biggest achievement gaps between blacks and whites and between Hispanics and whites of any urban district in the nation.

D.C. is not a model for the nation.

Reformers pointed to impressive graduation rates as evidence for the D.C. Miracle.

Now we know that the D.C. graduation rates were phony, and that about a third of graduates received diplomas despite absences and lacking credits.

Jan Resseger writes here about the collapsing legacy of Michelle Rhee.

Categories District of Columbia, Education Reform, Fraud, Graduation rates, Hoax, Rhee, Michelle
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